The present invention relates generally to the solicitation of votes from shareholders, bondholders, and others having a stake in governing corporate or mutual fund affairs. More particularly, the present invention pertains to methods and systems for communicating directly with shareholders and other stakeholders about to solicit votes regarding particular corporate affairs, including matters of corporate governance and securities transactions.
Currently, if a corporation or mutual fund issuer of securities wishes to affect the outcome of a vote for its annual or special meeting, they hire agents commonly known as “Solicitors” to contact the company's voters and deliver a message for solicitation purposes. Typically, this contact is initiated by either mail or telephone. Less frequently, the corporate issuer may perform these activities without agents by placing their message on their corporate web site. As an alternative, or to supplement this activity for best results, the corporate or mutual fund issuer will purchase mass media assets (e.g., newspaper ads, radio and/or television time) that they believe will reach and affect the voting position of their target audience, namely their voters. In the case of contested elections, dissident voters will act in the same manner as the corporate issuers in attempting to influence the voters.
Institutional voters may have significant relationships (commercial banking, investment banking or pension fund management) with the companies whose stocks or bonds they hold in their investment portfolios. The ‘push’ solicitation methodology currently employed, whereby a voter is contacted directly by or on behalf of a corporate issuer, is fraught with potential conflicts of interest. These conflicts can arise because solicitation activity directed at the institutional voter in the traditional fashion opens the possibility that the business interests (either to gain new or retain current business from the company in question) could influence the voting decision.
Other than corporate websites, there are no electronic or Internet-based methods and systems which can act as a “one-way mirror” for information in a ‘pull’ scenario; that being that the information is available to the voter but is only usable if a deliberate action is taken to retrieve and act upon it in private and without undue influence by the corporate or mutual fund issuer.
Thus, corporations and mutual fund companies have been searching for a solution to the inefficiency and expense associated with postal mail and telephone communications to voters related to meetings, corporate governance, regulatory or compliance matters, mergers, acquisitions, takeovers, written consents, proxy contests, or simply dissemination of information to voters.